Background
In 2017, the Indian Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment (the
"Puttaswamy Judgement"), found privacy
to be a fundamental right granted to every person under the Indian
Constitution. The right was read into the right to life and
personal liberty granted under Article 21.
Fundamental rights, however, while enforceable against the
state, are not necessarily so against private entities or
individuals.1 This created a need for a robust
legislation setting out provisions on data protection for data
subjects and data fiduciaries in India. In the Puttaswamy
Judgement, reference was made to an Expert Group which had
published a Report in 2012 regarding a framework for protection of
privacy concerns which would expectedly be used to draft a
legislation for India's data protection regime. Additionally,
the Puttaswamy Judgement also referred to a memorandum submitted by
the Government where the Government had constituted a Committee to
review data protection norms
